THE OTHER BIG SECRET 2: RABBIT STEW / CH. 9:WHAT I DID ON MY HOLIDAYS

SEPT 28TH, 1990

By Amanda Abbot, aged 9.

This summer, we went to visit auntie Rose and uncle James. Auntie Rose is a doctor, and she let me see how all her stethoscopes and things work. She and auntie Pania help all the mer-people get better when they get sick and gives injections to stop them catching nasty diseases. I don't like injections, but it must be better than getting dead. Mummy says auntie Pania isn't really my auntie, but might be my second cousin once removed in-law, which is too complicated. Emma and Sathie are my cousins. They like being mermaids. Auntie Pania used to be one too, and then she became a doctor and married William who mummy says is my second cousin once removed. I asked mummy why she wasn't a mermaid. She says says it's too dangerous. But Mummy did let me take the mermaid medicine, and I wasn't too sick. Emma said she didn't get sick at all when she took it, but Sathie threw up for a whole day. It took me ages to learn to swim properly, and I'm not nearly as good as my cousins, but being a mermaid is great fun, and the water doesn't feel cold if you keep moving. Uncle James told us all off when we went and waved at the tourists, but it was great fun. You should have seen their faces! They were grabbing each other and pointing at us as though they couldn't believe their eyes! Great grandma was there too. She's really old, and she told me lots of stories. She said I needed to remember them all and tell them to my children and their children, so that they're not forgotten. I really hope we can go back next year. I think I want to be a mermaid when I grow up, but maybe I'll buy and sell things like mummy.

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3PM, SEPT 30TH, 1990

“Mrs Abbot, it's Mrs Perry, I'm sorry to bother you, but could I have a word about your daughter?” the teacher sounded worried.

“Of course, what's the matter?” Karella said into the phone.

“She seems to be having problems separating fantasy from reality. We'd expect it in younger children, of course, but by her age....”

“I'm sorry, could you be more explicit? I'm not aware of her having any problems in that area.”

“Of course. Urm, I'd like to show you some of her work. Could you come in to the school?”

“This afternoon?”

“Please.”

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“Thank you for coming in. Here's some of her artwork, we're doing a series on family members at work. Her technique is excellent, but I think you'll notice a certain theme running through them. The first one says Auntie Rose at work.”

“My husband's sister, she's a doctor, yes. Oh, didn't she do well! It looks quite like her!”

“The patient appears to be a mermaid.”

Karella laughed. “I'm not surprised.”

The teacher looked at her oddly. “The next one, actually made her a little upset. I just asked them to draw one of their grandparents.”

“Her grandparents are all dead, Mrs Perry. My husband's mother, two years ago, was the last.”

“Oh, I didn't know.”

“Can I see the picture?”

“Oh, sorry, here it is.” The teacher had been looking at it.

There was a picture of an ocean scene, a mermaid sat on the rock with a spear, keeping watch. There was a shark-fin in the distance and children at play on the beach. Karella caught her breath, realising it was where her mother had died.

The teacher carried on, “Technically its a masterful piece, but....”

“It must be how she imagined my mother, just before a shark killed her and my brother. It's the recognisably the right spot. Amanda wanted to know where it had happened and we showed her this summer. I didn't realise her visual memory was so good, this is really impressive.”

“You don't notice anything odd?”

“Yes. The waves are coming from the wrong side, but I can't expect her to know that.”

“And she's drawn your mother as a mermaid.”

“Mer-woman, I would hope, Mrs Perry. She wouldn't be a maiden after having had four children, now, would she? Of course, in reality my mother wouldn't have been wearing that sort of skirt at all.” It was too colourful, for starters.

“Skirt?”

“My cousins run a skuba-dive tour company in New Zealand, Mrs Perry. A lot of the staff wear skirts like that one. They're made out of wet-suit material, and I'm told that with practice they let them swim much faster than the more normal flippers, which is useful if one of the customers gets in trouble, and it makes it easy for tourists to spot who's staff. It's good for the trade, of course, too when people hear they get to go for a swim with mermen, and merwomen.”

“Not with mermaids, then?” offering an essay that Amanda had written.

“Oh I'm sure that some of the young men would like that.” Karella laughed, and accepted the essay.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Oh is that what she got told off for, she wouldn't tell me. It's not unusual, apparently. One or two of the girls will take a deep breath and swim past a group of tourists without any tank on, just at the limits of vision. I didn't know Amanda took part.” she made a sigh and shook her head, “Oh, it's just a bit of silly fun I suppose, and it really gets people talking, which is probably good for the business. But my cousin's right not to encourage that sort of distraction. The sea's a dangerous place, after all.”

“So.. in that context, being a mermaid is actually a career choice? I thought she was living in a fantasy world!”

“Well, it's a living I suppose, and Amanda's certainly got all the right contacts.” Karella said “But it's not one I'd choose myself, and I'll tell her not to talk about it to her friends. It's certainly not the sort of career where there are even two or three openings a year.”

“She writes about some kind of mermaid medicine. What's that?”

Karella pulled a face. “A vile mix of herbs and boiled squid tentacles someone came up with a long time ago.” Karella said, perfectly truthfully. “Rose assures me the ingredients are harmless, despite the reaction. I guess it's at least partially from the taste of it. It's one of those things that everyone in the family tries, from one generation to the next, urged on by their older cousins. You know, 'Go on, go on, you've never tasted anything so vile, it's amazing!!' The odd thing is that after you've recovered from the first mouthful, it actually doesn't taste so bad, or make you throw up.”

“Oh. So then older cousins make it and say 'See, I've just drunk some', it's fine?'”

“Exactly. Except one of the mothers makes it, to make sure they don't put too much chilli sauce in it. Normally, after much pestering, you can imagine.”

“Boiled squid tentacles and chilli sauce?” the teacher repeated.

“Along with other things, yes.” Karella said “Makes your mouth water just thinking about it, doesn't it?”

“Not particularly. You've drunk it?”

“Of course! I even made some for Rick. He claimed it tasted like chilli con mouldy cabbage mixed with old shoe curry and anchovy flavoured boiled sweets. But I think he might of just reached the limits of his vocabulary. It's almost certainly worse.”

“I hope you're not going to let Amanda bring any in for her friends to try at school. We'd mostly likely get sued.”

“Oh, don't worry. You can't get the fresh squid tentacles round here.”

“Well, I must say, Mrs Abbot, you seem to come from quite an unusual family.”

“We like to think so.” Karella agreed. “We're fairly close knit. Oh, while I'm here, I've been meaning to ask, have there been any more conflicts involving Amanda after last year? She hasn't told me of anything, but...”

“No. No, we've written to the parents of the child concerned, reminding them of school policy. He shouldn't be making any more racial slurs.”

“I'm glad. She was very distressed when it first happened.”

“I can imagine.”

“I never did get from her quite how it started, could you tell me from your perspective?”

“Yes. I'm afraid I might have triggered it, actually. We were reading a book which had a character in it who used some Romani words. I asked the class if they knew what they meant, and Amanda answered, and told me I wasn't quite pronouncing them right.”

“Oh. And then it all came out the play time after?”

“No. A few days later, actually. I guess he'd told his parents, and they'd told him what they think of your husband's race, I guess. Your own family background is unusual too, am I right? Beyond the squid tentacles, I mean.”

“Oh, very. Like I said, we're a close knit group, similar to the Amish in America, I guess. We're almost all Christians now, by the way, but the old isolationism has stuck. And we're more open to outsiders than we used to be. My grandfather married in, Rose married in, I married out.”

“Could you tell me a little more about it?”

“We're a refugee people, I guess you could say. We got driven out of our homeland again during world-war one, but even before then there was a lot of fear of persecution. Still is, actually, I was asked to take a vow never to speak too much of our people to outsiders, actually.”

“Oh! I didn't realise. But now your people live in New Zealand?”

Karella laughed. “Most of my immediate family is. But I've got cousins all over the world actually. Living quiet lives, getting on with what we do, which is mostly fishing. I took to commerce, buying and selling.” She noticed that Mrs Perry had pearl ear-rings and decided to turn the conversation to business. “If you ever decide you wanted a matched string of natural pearls, for instance, I can easily find you that next vacation.”

“A string of natural pearls?”

“Yes. I know that there's a lot of cultured ones on the market these days, but if you want natural ones, my relatives know where to collect them. Of course, it is rather hard to tell the difference, so it'd be more the thing to have the pleasure of knowing yourself.”

“I could never afford natural pearls!”

“Mrs Perry, it took me a long time to realise that the things I used to play with like marbles had any value... As I said we are an isolated people, getting on with our own things. I've put the word out that I have a market for matched sets of undamaged pearls. My relatives don't believe how much I'm prepared to pay for them and think I'm being silly offering so much. I still make a very healthy profit, and you get a pleasant surprise, I hope. No commitment before you see them, of course.”

“You're quite a convincing sales-person.”

“I know, sorry.”

“You're sorry?”

“Well, I'm here for a conversation about my daughter, and I'm turning it into a business discussion...”

“Pearls aren't business, they're pleasure.”

“Ah! So, would you specify what I should be looking for, or just look at what I have on offer and expose yourself to temptation?”

“You don't have any samples now do you?”

“Mrs Perry, what do you think?” Karella asked, with a smile.

“I expect that you do. I expect that the sample you have is a perfectly spherical pearl of unusually high lustre, to tempt me to think that I could have a string of such things if only I mortgaged my house, sold my husband and gave you my eye teeth. Can I see it?”

“Not if you're serious about any of those. Especially the teeth. Actually, I think it's rather an ordinary one.” She reached into her hand-bag, pulled out the little box and handed it over.

“You think this is ordinary?” Mrs Perry asked in hushed tones.

“Sorry. Like I say, a South Sea pearl? I treated them as marbles, threw them at my brothers, that sort of thing. If you live in the wrong part of this marvelous world, then a pearl is just a complete pain when you accidentally drop one in the oyster stew.”

“That's a lot of oyster stew if you can play marbles with them.”

“Well, OK, they do get passed from one kid to the next. But I know I had the job of fishing one out of the stew fairly regularly. Most weren't this big, of course.”

“I thought not.”

“So, a tentative order?”

“You said I'd be pleasantly surprised...”

“Yes.”

“I'd be very pleasantly surprised if you could find some that are a colour-matching my ear-rings. I'm more concerned about that than anything else, actually.”

“They're an unusual colour.”

“Yes. And a gift from my mother.”

“I'll see what I can do.”